The Beginning Psychotherapist's Companion
Update: Third Edition anticipated in 2024! Email me to get an announcement when the new edition comes out.
Filling in the gaps from students’ lack of experience and confidence, The Beginning Psychotherapist’s Companion, Second Edition is a supportive and empathetic guide, addressing real-world concerns and providing essential insights not taught in textbooks.
With a reassuring and clear writing style, Willer offers practical suggestions and clinical examples to address the professional development and emotional concerns of the beginning psychotherapist. She guides readers through structuring the first session, making clinical observations, and establishing a therapeutic alliance. Through the use of culturally diverse clinical vignettes, Willer discusses the foundations of ethical practice, including informed consent, confidentiality, documentation, and setting boundaries. The reader is guided on how and when to refer clients for medication and other health care. Crisis management principles are detailed, including suicide and violence risk assessment, child abuse, elder abuse, intimate partner violence, and rape. Willer also provides professional advice on contemporary concerns such as social networking, online searches of clients, the psychotherapist’s internet presence, and other important emerging challenges. Comprehensive, practical, and thoroughly updated, The Beginning Psychotherapist’s Companion, Second Edition is the ideal resource for students and early career psychotherapists.
For more information or to buy on Oxford University Press website
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If you want an academic review copy, e-mail me for more information.
“This book is an absolute gem. It provides all the secrets for being a successful psychotherapist that every practicing psychotherapist wishes they were told when they were first starting out. Well, the secret is out! Every psychotherapist-in-training and every early career psychotherapist should read this book and learn from its many wise lessons. You’ll be glad you did!”
Jeffrey E. Barnett, PsyD, ABPP
Professor and Associate Department Chair, Director of Practitioner Masters Programs, Department of Psychology, Loyola University Maryland, and Past-President, Division of Psychotherapy of the American Psychological Association
"This book is equally valuable to beginning and more seasoned psychotherapists, as well as supervisors. It is expansive in its coverage and does what it sets out to do—assist new practitioners with a number of pragmatic and professional issues before they start to practice psychotherapy. I have used the previous edition with my supervisees and it has provided a valuable guidebook and a catalyst for discussion. It is truly a companion and I recommend it very highly as a relevant and helpful resource."
Christine A. Courtois, Ph.D., ABPP
Psychologist, Independent Practice, Washington, DC; Author of Treatment of Complex Trauma
“Dr. Willer has updated her valuable guide to an amazing diversity of topics that can trip up therapists as they begin to practice: self-doubt, self-presentation, fees, HIPAA, charting, referrals, informed consent, crisis readiness, medications, mandated reporting, electronic communications, and burnout, to name but a few examples. Beginning psychotherapists of all disciplines and theoretical orientations will find here an immensely useful and user-friendly resource.”
Kenneth S. Pope, PhD, ABPP
Diplomate in Clinical Psychology
“Expanded and enriched in this second edition, this highly instructive primer for actual practice covers even more of the clinical bases than the first. Like a ‘supervisor on the shelf’ this book rewards the beginning psychotherapist (as well as many more experienced practitioners) with explicit strategies, pitfalls to avoid and ethical dimensions of the real world of clinician-patient negotiations. Still a necessary book.”
Thomas G. Gutheil, MD
Professor of Psychiatry, Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center and Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston